Whatcom County health department has started to work on one of the core features of the Healthy Children’s Fund: subsidies to families and providers that will make child care more affordable and available. Part of that mission includes helping families take advantage of already-existing but underutilized state subsidies.
The levy to support the Healthy Children’s Fund (HCF) was passed by voters in 2022 and brings in almost $10 million a year. The fund has two components: early childhood care and support for vulnerable children.
This spring, the health department started rolling out requests for proposals and contracts with service providers, but most of the contracts have been directed at resources for homeless children and parents. Subsidies, on the other hand, are supposed to help local households pay less for child care while making the business of child care more sustainable for providers.
During a presentation to the Whatcom County Council on Nov. 6, Child and Family Programs Supervisor Sarah Simpson and project consultant Casey Osborn explained how the subsidies might work.
The state already has a program called Working Connections Child Care that fully subsidizes child care for families with incomes below 60% of the state median income (SMI) — $6,552 per month for a household of four. That threshold will be bumped up to 75% SMI ($8,190 for a household of four) in July 2025.
Working Connections is “massively underutilized” in Whatcom County, Osborn told the county council. Only 8% of eligible families with infants and 15% of eligible families with children aged 3 to 5 are enrolled in the program.
She explained that it’s not a well-known program and can be a hassle to sign up for. That’s why the health department will spend $200,000 from the HCF in the first year (with smaller recurring costs in following years) to develop an outreach campaign and increase enrollment in Working Connections.
If 50 additional families enrolled, they would collectively save more than a million dollars a year.
But there’s a subsidy “cliff,” as service providers call it — parents who earn just over the eligibility threshold go from a 100% subsidy to paying market rate for child care, even though they’re still likely struggling with the cost of housing, food and transportation.
The Healthy Children’s Fund can help alleviate that cliff by giving a monthly child care allowance of a few hundred dollars to families that earn up to 85% SMI.
Subsidies to families and providers are projected to eat up almost a third of the fund every year. On Nov. 6, health department staff asked the council members to consider their priorities, which will dictate how the funds are distributed — should the county more fully support fewer families or give smaller subsidies to more families?
“My knee-jerk is to serve as many children and families as we can,” said council member Kaylee Galloway, a sentiment her fellow council member Tyler Byrd echoed. Byrd did ask that the county make sure it’s not “putting up money when there are no actual slots available.”
The county is short around 5,000 child care slots, with long waitlists at most centers.
Even though child care can cost families up to $2,000 per month for one kid, a Cascadia Daily News investigation in February 2023 found the high cost doesn’t guarantee a profit for providers. It’s expensive to follow licensing regulations and adhere to mandatory staff-to-child ratios while operating in an industry with low wages, demanding work and high staff turnover.
A 2024 study by the state Department of Children, Youth and Families showed that revenue from state child care subsidies doesn’t fully cover increasing expenses for providers. Serving infants and toddlers is especially costly, which is why Whatcom County is proposing to augment Working Connections payments to providers that take in children aged 0 to 3.
“We’re trying to ease the cliff for providers who take on the really important responsibility of caring for infants and toddlers so hopefully they continue doing it,” said Kayla Schott-Bresler, county deputy executive.
Council and staff said they expect to finalize the child care subsidy plan at the next regular council meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 19.
Julia Tellman writes about civic issues and anything else that happens to cross her desk; contact her at juliatellman@cascadiadaily.com.
